Who's Sick Today?

Ick!
We all hate being sick.

Today at storytime we shared stories about illness which included toothaches, sore throats, sneezes and sniffles. We also talked about washing hands to keep those pesky germs AWAY from our bodies!

Books We Shared Today
Who's Sick Today?  by Lynne Cherry (young stoats with sore throats!)
Hippo Goes Bananas  by Marjorie Dennis Murray
Llama Llama Home with Mama  by Anna Dewdney
Hunky Dory Ate It  by Katie Evans

For a hand-washing excersise, we shared this fingerplay rhyme.
I made these silly germ monsters with art work from dreamstime.com which I used on my fingers -- each germ was washed away as the rhyme progressed :

Five nasty germs going out to play
Along came the water ... and washed one away!

Four nasty germs trying to have some fun,
Along came the soap ... and one had to run.

Three nasty germs trying to make you sick,
Along came the scrubbing and said, "you're not going to stick!"

Two nasty germs got into a fight,
Along came the rinse and washed one out of sight.

One nasty germ thought it couldn't be seen ...
But I dried my hands with a towel and now my hands are nice and clean!


Many years ago, I made a book prop from the Lois Sachar book Monkey Soup. It is one of the best book props I have ever made and I use it every year. Best thing about this prop? You can always replace the pieces.

The book (which is out of print) tells the story of a little girl whose daddy is sick.
Just like mommy is making him chicken noodle soup to feel better, the girl is making "monkey soup", named such because of the help from her stuffed monkey (who ends up as a soup ingredient at the end). I skip the entire monkey part and just stick with the main ingredients.

They are :
crayons for Daddy's pale face
balloons to make Daddy happy
band-aids to make him feel better
a blanket to keep him warm
kleenex for all his sneezes
buttons for fun (because Grandma gave her a sweater with buttons she loves)
bubbles because who doesn't love bubbles??
a napkin so he stays clean while he eats
soap and a toothbrush so he can clean up before & after eating
YUM! Eat up!



Monkey Soup!


Finally, to finish we did "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". I brought along a phone prop so I could "talk" to the doctor after each monkey bumped his or her head.

I also had this available for parents to make at home -- the monkeys are two-sided so that they can turn to the hurt (or sad) side when they bump their heads :

All About Our Senses

Taste! Touch! Smell! Sight! Sound!
Today we celebrated the way most of us experience the world.
We talked briefly about people who had difficulty with sight and sound, but most of us can taste, touch and smell things -- sometimes all at once!

Books We Read Today :
My Five Senses  by Aliki
Five For a Little One  by Chris Raschka
Seven Blind Mice  by Ed Young
Polar Bear, Polar Bear  by Eric Carle

I borrowed heavily from Ryan the Librarian for this version of the chant/song/poem "The Five Senses" :

Rub your hands to get some feeling,
Stretch your ears to check your hearing,
Sniff to smell what's in the air --
Good or bad? Nose beware!

Blink, blink, blink - what can you see?
How many fingers - one? two? three?
Last it's time for tongue push-ups :
Up, down, left, right and round and round!

I ended up singing this text on an upward scale, going up stepwise and ending the ocatve on "nose beware!" I then made the trip down the octave stepwise, ending with the last line. Worked pretty well.



My flannel for the day wasn't really about the senses, but featured putting together the man in the moon complete with meatball eyes, cheese nose, and a pizza mouth ...
"Aiken Drum" Flannel :


The last story we shared is an old one from Book Props. It involves the antics of a silly goose and a siller duck who decide to play a game they call the standing-still-for-the-longest-contest. Unfortunately, they both want to win the game so much they do not move even when a fox comes and sweeps them both up in his bag for lunch and dinner.

The prop is based on the book Don't Fidget a Feather! by Erica Silverman.
While retelling the story, I took some liberties with the plot to incorporate the senses (the sound and feel of the bumblebee, the smell and feel of the tickly bunnies, the sharp claws and loud caw of the pesky crows, etc. etc.)

Let It Snow!

Now that (hopefully) the worst of winter is behind us, we can actually celebrate the season! Well, sort of ... it's only mid-January.

Books We Read Today
"Winter is the Warmest Season" by Lauren Stringer
"Under My Hood I Have a Hat" by Karla Kuskin
"The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats
"Pip & Squeak" by Ian Schoenherr






I recited this silly poem with flannel pieces.
The brilliant Jack Prelutsky wrote this and it can be found in the collection "It's Snowing, It's Snowing! : Winter Poems (An I Can Read Book)" :

My snowman has a noble head
He's broad and he is tall.
His ears are tin, his eyes are coal,
He has no neck at all.

Beneath his ragged hat he wears
A bit of tangled wool,
His barrel chest is buttoned up,
His belly's rather full.

My snowman has a handsome face
Complete with carrot nose,
His arms are long, his legs are short,
He hasn't any toes.

He wields a broom, the helpful guy,
His smile is wide and bright.
"He looks like you!" my father says.
You know ... he may be right!


I also shared one of the few cut-and-tell stories that I think actually works at storytime.
This one is titled : "Just Like That".

On Sunday it snowed ... just like that  (show piece of blank white paper)
On Monday I made a snowman ... just like that (cut out a snowman from the paper)
On Tuesday the wind blew ... just like that (cut away some of the snowman)
On Wednesday it rained ... just like that (cut away yet more of the snowman)
On Thursday it rained and RAINED! ... just like that (cut away most of the snowman)
On Friday the sun shone ... just like that (cut snowman until it is a small puddle)
On Saturday I stayed inside ... just like that (make "harumph" sound and cross arms)
On Sunday it snowed ... just ... like ... that ... (show a new piece of blank white paper)


Finally, we did one of my all-time favorite fingerplays ... first we did this as an actual fingerplay with no props. Then I got out my prop carrot and prop bunny and we did it again. Love this.

There was a little snowman (show L fist)
Who had a carrot nose (show index finger of L fist)
Along came a bunny (R hand makes rabbit ears)
And what do you suppose?
That hungry little bunny
Was looking for some lunch ... (bunny ears turn to "look" at snowman)
He saw the snowman's carrot nose,
Nibble ... nibble ... CRUNCH! (hop bunny all the way over to snowman and "eat" carrot)

The Marvelous, Magestic Moose

OK, so when I planned this storytime with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (aka the MN DNR) I admit that I was a bit influenced by my passion for the moose. When Jan Welsh from the DNR told me that she could bring some moose artifacts to add to my storytime, I about fainted with delight.

(side note : the moose in Minnesota are suffering from climate change and their numbers are significantly dwindling ... find out more here)



There are some absolutely fabulous moose-themed books out there, mostly because there is nothing like a moose so how fun is it to write a children's book about this wonderful creature?

Here are the two books I selected for today :
Elusive Moose  by Joan Gannij
A Moose's World  by Caronline Arnold

Then, somehow from the recesses of my brain, I recalled a call-and-respond song from my Girl Scout Days. Perfect. Fit. Here is a video clip for "Da Moose" performed by the wonderful Susan Salidor. Just as I remembered it from my childhood!

Family Storytime - Hiberrrrnation!

In honor of the first snowfall forecast for later on this week, we said good-night, sleep tight to all our furry forest friends as they prepared for a long winter's nap.

Here are the books we shared :

I liked including some nonfiction ("Not a Buzz to be Found : Insects in Winter") plus it told the hibernation story from a non-mammal point of view (where do all those ants, ladybugs and honeybees go in winter anyway??)

We sang the "Grizzly Bear" song, which I do every year ... and which kids L-O-V-E :
Grizzly bear, oh grizzly bear is sleeping in his cave
Grizzly bear, oh grizzly bear is sleeping in his cave
(make the ASL sign for "bear" : hands shaped like claws, crossed over chest, "scratch" twice)
Shhhhh ....
(finger over lips)
Please be very quiet ...
Very ... very ... quiet ...
If you wake him,
If you shake him,
He is sure to growl -- GRRRR!!!
(clawed hands up and out)

Our "action" song was a bear hibernation song based on "The Ants Go Marching" :
The bears go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The bears go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah,
The bears go marching one by one,
The little one knew that autumn was done ...
And they all go marching down 
To their den
Because winter had set in ...

Two by two ...
Little one stopped to sneeze : a-a-achooo!

Three by three ...
Little one stopped to claw a tree

Four by four ...
Little one stopped to eat just a bit more

Five by five 
Little one stopped to whisper : "nighty-night!"

I also shared this flannel, based on "Five in the Bed" :

It was winter ... and all the animals were getting ready for bed.
First bear climbed into bed,
Then raccoon,
Then skunk,
Then chipmunk,
And finally little mouse.
But mouse did not have any room!
So he wiggled and squirmed until ...
There were five in the bed
And the little mouse said,
"Roll over! Roll over!"
So they all rolled over and bear fell out - whoops!
(and so on ...)

Happy Hibernation!

Flannel Fun @ MLA

The lovely Anna Haase Krueger at Future Librarian Superhero and myself successfully presented a workshop last week on how to effectively make flannel stories during the annual Minnesota Library Association's Conference. Despite the fact that at times I felt we really slapped it together at the last minute, we had a great experience and were able to share some nice tips with attendees.

Here is a link to our Prezi : Flannel : Not Just Your Grandma's Pajamas

After discussing types of flannels (stories, songs, games, etc.) and how flannels can support the five early literacy elements, we dug into the "how to make" and "how to use" ... my favorite part of the workshop!

We had three options for folks to make during their time at the workshop :
1. These fabulous dinosaurs (courtesy of Piper Loves the Library)

Here is the template that was shared for attendees to use in making their dinosaur pieces :

2. Another option was to make simple shapes as faces showing emotions and expressions. The idea was to make these double-sided with a sleeping face on one side and a surprised/shocked/delighted face on the other side. Using the rhyme "Five In The  Bed" the idea was to start with the faces sleeping and turn each one over as they fall out of the bed :

3. The final option (and many folks just took the template home with them) was to create a five apples template, double-sided, to be used with any various apple rhyme :

Here is what the template looks like :

After collecting all our flannel pieces, scissors, glue, paper, tape, display boards, brains ... we made it out of the workshop room in time for the next presenter -- whew! Note to self : if presenting a crafty-type workshop? ask to be scheduled right before a break ... so many folks wished they'd had more time to work on their flannel pieces.

All in all, Anna and I brought forth the power that is ALL HAIL FLANNEL and had a superb time.

Getting Down-n-dirty with Flannel at MLA

Apples & Pumpkins

I like to do a combined apples/pumpkins storytime because the two items are a nice contrast to each other : one is red, the other is orange. One grows in trees, the other grows on the ground. One you eat fresh and raw, the other you cut up and cook (or make a jack-o-lantern!).

In either case, we celebrated the bounty of fall harvests with all things A & P ... that is, apple & pumpkin.
Here are the books we shared :

I also cobbled together this "Apples & Pumpkins" fingerplay rhyme which went over extremely well :

Apples, apples, what a treat! (rub tummy)
Sweet and tart and good to eat.
Apples green ... apples red ... (show R fist & L fist for apples)
Hang from branches overhead. (put fists up in the air)
And when they ripen, down they drop, ("drop" fists into lap)
So we can taste our apple crop!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, big and round, (arms form a large circle)
I'm glad you grow upon the ground! (point to floor)
I'm glad you don't grow in a tree (big arms over head)
For then you might fall down on me! (ahhh!! pretend that pumpkin falls SPLAT on your head)

For our flannel story I borrowed this idea from Storytime Katie -- I had used this in the past but with only a single puppet, not multiple ones as recommended.
Today I used the following puppets :
a crow
a mouse
a squirrel
a rabbit
a monkey (a monkey?!? on a farm?? you betcha)
I never thought the kids would love it so much! Seriously, with each puppet I brought out to take a bite from the farmer's apples, there was MUCH LOUD SCREAMING. Who knew???